Important Conversations Don't Happen Sitting Down
by Odat
Summary: They were cold and they had already had this conversation a hundred times over, until they hadn't. SoMa


AN: Um, pardon my angst? Fuck. I started this having to clue where it was going and then it got dark. And sad. And just why do I write these things?

Don't own. Not mine.

**Important Conversations Don't Happen Sitting Down**

After so many years of battle instincts you know when something is off. She didn't hesitate; she didn't react even though she knew someone was waiting for her in her small apartment. The intruder was lounging on her couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table, he almost looked nonchalant, he almost looked like he belong there, he almost looked relaxed.

He'd given up the cool attitude years ago, it was too much effort.

He didn't belong there, he hardly even belonged in her life.

He was never relaxed, not anymore. Neither was she.

She sighed and relocked her three locks, she wasn't sure why she bothered anymore, he just picked them. "What do you want?"

They were cold now. They had been for years. It should have hurt to see him and maybe it did, but Maka figured that she was just too numb for the sight of him in her apartment to really bother her. He cocked his head to the side and just looked at her. Soul noted that she didn't actually trust him; she never turned her back to him and always had at least two escape routes as she moved around the small apartment. He figured he should be hurt, he swore he'd never hurt her but he couldn't blame her for being wary.

They're both older, she's still lean and all legs and he's broader and sharper. She stopped caring about her chest around the same time he gave up trying to be cool. Neither of them had the luxury of wasting energy on trivial things anymore.

"Need a meister."

"No."

He smirked, that was a quick response. Soul didn't bother arguing; instead he stood and lunged for her shifting halfway across the coffee table into a scythe. Maka caught him before she could stop herself and twirled him for balance as her feet adjusted themselves to a wider stance. "Fuck." She threw Soul away from her and he shifted back to land on his feet.

It had felt too familiar to wield him for that second, too much like their school days, Maka bit back another curse, it had felt good to hold him again. He was grinning at her from across the room with his hands in his pockets. She scowled and tried not to wonder why she was so against being his meister again.

"You took Death's side."

"Would have been tried for treason and executed otherwise. Especially considering I was one of his Death Scythes."

"Kid and I wouldn't have let that happen."

"You don't know that. He was a death god."

"Even my father—"

"And look what happened to him!" Soul finally roared cutting her off. This was an old dialogue they had been running against each other ever since the civil war. Kid has bested his father, pardoned the remaining Death Scythes who had had to stay loyal to the former death god, and allowed a greater amount of transparency in his moral code. But Maka still saw Soul's actions as a betrayal and as an abandonment of their partnership. Her father had stood behind Kid instead of Death and had been killed for it before they knew how to protect themselves. He was the example that kept the other Death Scythes loyal to Lord Death.

Soul and Maka had not spoken about the fact that he was the scythe that Death had wielded to kill her father.

"You know, I realize that I was a coward to not go against him. But I had wanted to live, there were things that I had wanted to do before all of that." He trailed off but held her eyes. "He chose me on purpose. He knew it would destroy us." Maka snarled at him, this was new and she did not want to deal with it right now, she could feel the tears coming. "Death knew he couldn't risk me betraying him for you. He said if I even toed the lines he'd set, he would have you killed. Maka, I couldn't, you know I wouldn't have." Soul's jaw clenched as he tried to compose himself, "I figured that you being alive and hating me was better than you being dead." He finally looked away from her.

He had torn at all of her old wounds and her tears were hot down her cheeks and her neck. "I hate you." The words were raw and Soul flinched.

"I'll see myself out."

He schooled his voice and face into their normal cold and passed her to walk out her apartment door.

"I swear to god Soul Eater, if you walk out that door, I will never talk to you again." Maka's voice was still thick with tears but it stopped him dead just in front of the door. Her back was to him. "You were my best friend, my partner, my weapon, my fiancé!" A sob racked her body, his proposal had been so flawed and so him and so full of love that it still made her heart ache. "And then you were the enemy. Kid and I tried everything to figure out how to save you and then—"

And then he had killed her father.

"I didn't know what to do with myself. Everything I knew was gone and you weren't there. I hated you."

She turned to him, her eyes red and her skin blotchy, she was never one of the girls who was beautiful when she cried. Soul stood frozen, afraid to breathe, to _hope_, when she jabbed him in the chest. "And then you come back here, years later! Acting like you belong and tell me that you were just protecting me? What am I supposed to think Soul?" Her pointed jabs to his sternum had turned to fist beating his chest when she sobbed. "How the hell can I just start loving you after everything? That's not fair!"

Soul enveloped her in his arms, crushing her to him; her tears soaked into his shirt and her sobs rattled his rib cage. But he just rested his chin on top of her head, tucking her into him, and tried not to shake too badly.

Soul and Maka both put in for a month of leave, much to Kid's dismay and great pleasure. Maka had been his best technician and planner and Soul his best weapon and commander, to lose their abilities for a month would set him back in the rebuilding of Death City as well as future plans, but he signed off with a smile glad to allow them time to reconcile. The war had been rough on all of them, but it hadn't torn any other partnership apart as badly as theirs. Seeing them walk away, hand in hand, gave him hope that they could indeed rebuild all that had been destroyed.


End file.
